


Babyland

by ltskiki



Category: American Horror Story, American Horror Story: Murder House
Genre: Canon Death(s), Canon-Typical Violence, Character Study, F/M, Gen, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Infant Death, Miscarriage, Pre-Canon, Stillbirth
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-13
Updated: 2015-08-13
Packaged: 2018-04-14 11:20:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,040
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4562706
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ltskiki/pseuds/ltskiki
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Babyland (proper noun): A separate area in a cemetery for stillborn or otherwise deceased infants.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Babyland

**Author's Note:**

> https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=UHd8jwXBzXE
> 
> This is the song being played throughout most of the story, it's instrumental so it shouldn't be distracting as I find reading and listening to lyrics come to be.

The casket was white.

Violet thought that was funny, in a sick sort of way. Everyone was wearing black, the sky was dark and it was drizzling, typical East Coast weather. Everything was dark and o-so-cliché except for the tiny fucking casket.

Even though it was obviously not as large as a traditional coffin, she expected it to be smaller. When she thought of miscarriages, she imagined teeny, viscera covered fetuses like the ones on those sick billboards that always seemed to pop up on highways. This was about the length of small coffee table, the edges smudged with mud no matter how carefully the men set it onto the table next to the grave. They didn't even have a pianist, just a bulky CD player sitting on a plastic table. She remembered the tune faintly from middle school when she took piano lessons. Moonlight Sonata, Beethoven.

The preacher or priest or pope or whatever he was called (Violet hadn’t been to a church except for her Catholic aunt’s wedding when she was 6) droned on and on. She didn’t even know why he was here, Vivien’s side was religious, but the softcore kind that didn’t ever even pray before meals or eat fish on Fridays. Violet kept herself busy wondering why fish didn’t have to be sacrificed. It was meat, right? Didn’t God turn water into wine and bread into fish? Wasn’t the symbol her babysitter plastered onto the back of her sedan a Jesus thing? It’s funny how something with such significance would get eaten.

She was still contemplating when she felt eyes on her. Looking beside her, Violet’s mom and dad were standing up. Ben was closest to her, and motioned for her to follow. Confused, she stood up from the cheap folding chair, dimly aware of her flats sinking into the moist earth. ‘It makes sense that the ground would be so nourished’ she thought briefly. It was true. The dirt was a dark chocolate brown, the grass a brilliant green. On a sunny day it would have looked even nicer.

After a while of standing, Vivien moved towards the grave. Startled, Violet realized the casket wasn’t on the metal platform anymore; it had already been laid into the ground and she hadn’t even noticed. A twang of guilt vibrated through her stomach. 

Vivien picked up the shovel placed next to a pile of clean earth. She looked so small, so fragile in comparison to the large wooden handle. Her hair covered her face, but Violet knew it had that same expression (or lack thereof) as she had the last few days. Almost forcefully, she dumped the quart of dirt onto the shiny white cedar, ruining the illusion of the untouched, adorable cherub everyone imagined when they entered babyland. Vivien let out a hoarse cry, almost more of a bark, and Ben wrapped his arm around her shoulder and took the shovel from her hands. For a second, Viv balked away at his touch, like she had forgotten he was there, or he was some sort of stranger getting too close.

They stayed in that awkward shoulder-hug for a few moments, before she slipped out of his grasp and waited out his turn. It was methodical, a metal blade gliding into the dirt as easy as through pale skin, and there was another shovel-full in the ground.

Violet realized it was time for her to perform this ritual. She was the last one, the only other immediate family there. Dutifully, she grabbed the shovel and got her first look into the looming gap in the earth. 

She had the sudden urge to spit on the coffin. Spit on the idea of a girl barely 15 years old who had to bury her baby sister. She never even got to see the thing, the thing that consumed 9 months of her life with annoying name chatter and preparations. The baby showers and getting a D in science because everyone was too busy making organic milkshakes or going to pregnant pilates. Not like it meant anything.

Brushing back the hair that escaped from her felt hat, she reaffirmed that everyone was staring at her. This was it. The success, the alpha child, the one who made it out alive. The one with stinging cuts lining her jacket sleeves as she lifted them to bury the memory of those square little pictures that hung on the fridge as soon as they got back from the sonographer.

A small sigh of relief escaped Violet's lips as they walked back to the car, and she could see it flicker for a moment before dissipating. The worst part was over.

It was barely a year later and she was sitting a thousand miles away with some kid with honey brown eyes and shaggy hair that made him look like a puppy, explaining all the gorey details. The way his eyes lit up when she mentioned the blood and the sex and the lies told her she shouldn't spare anything with this boy, he wanted the full experience. He wanted to experience death and what the loss felt like for her. Out of sympathy or excitement she could not tell.

Two years later Violet stood looking through the curtains at the quiet street, the same little boy pecking and biting on her neck. After long discussions about the rage and pent up anger he had felt before he met her, she still didn't trust him. She didn't trust killers and she didn't trust dead people. She didn't trust anyone in the house but she let him in again because him and her parents and the whimpered cries that echoed through the basement as the new mothers all played with their doll were all she had. 

She wondered briefly about her own funeral. A white coffin, tiny, violet-sized, for her to curl up and sleep forever in. All it would take was a anonymous tip to the police station and she was free. But is heaven what she wanted? To roam around in the clouds and rolling fields with her grandma and the cat she had when she was 9 and a little baby girl with her father's eyes? 

Was it what she deserved?

**Author's Note:**

> I love Violet and it's really interesting to see her struggle with what's normal teenage angst, mental illness, or loss, and trying to keep afloat. She's still very naive in canon and I try to show that, but towards the end I see her gaining a lot of maturity in death, especially relationship wise.


End file.
